It presents a simple, easy, effective, free exercise you can do in little time that makes you aware of your beliefs and mental models and develops your skills to change them purposefully. What’s the significance of beliefs and mental models? While we may live in the same physical world, our beliefs and models interpret and give meaning and value to things. In a glass of wine, different people may see a delicious beverage, a dangerous intoxicant, a product to sell, a way to get drunk, and so on. How you see it colors your world. Whether you’ve realized it yet or not, you can choose if you want to live in a world of delicious flavor, danger, products and sales, drunkenness, or however you choose to assign value to things.

ReModel‘s main exercise helps you understand your world as you interpret it. Then it shows how to change your beliefs voluntarily. The book gives you many examples of the author’s belief, some common, some not so. Seeing another’s beliefs empowers you to change how you see your world, perhaps the most powerful and effective way to understand and change your world and your place in it.

Following the main exercise and brief discussion of the importance of beliefs, the book covers the beliefs the author found when he did the exercise — that is, he walks you through what you might discover when you do it — roughly one belief per chapter. Written by an entrepreneur and public speaker with an Ivy League PhD in physics and MBA, the book is practical, understandable, and down to earth, devoid of new age-y mysticism or hand waving. Everything you read you can use.

Through example and practice you learn to create more meaning, value, importance, and purpose in your life.

Excerpt

From the book’s introduction:

The great business guru Peter Drucker illustrated how different people find different value and meaning from their work (and lives) through the parable of the three stonecutters.

An old story tells of three stonecutters asked what they were doing.

The first looked unhappy. He said, “I’m making a living cutting stones.”

The second looked happier and proud. He kept on hammering while he said, “I’m doing the best job of stone-cutting in the entire country.”

The third one looked up with a visionary gleam in his eyes and said, “I’m building a cathedral.”

Most people sense meaning in this parable but don’t see how to use it to improve their lives or careers. They use it evaluate their situation instead of improve it. You might have asked yourself these questions:

Which of the three would I rather be?

Which one am I now?

Which one would I hire first or want in my community?

Which one are more of my friends and peers like?

Those questions aren’t bad, but they evaluate without giving direction. We already know we would rather be cathedral-builders; we’d rather hire them and have them in our teams and communities; and we want people like them in our lives.

Those questions don’t help us improve our lives. These do.

How do you become a cathedral-builder?

and

How do you lead and inspire others to become cathedral-builders?

This book shows you how to become a cathedral-builder. Then you can lead and inspire others to become cathedral-builders too. The people you inspire will thank you for leading them, feel loyal to you, and want you to lead them again.

Read the book! You’ll learn how to change your world efficiently, effectively, consistently, and simply. And you’ll find the process rewarding.